Menendez: The “Iranians are showing their true intentions” with this little centrifuge surprise

posted at 7:01 pm on December 28, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

On Thursday, the head of Tehran’s nuke agency announced that Iran is working on developing a “new generation” of centrifuge equipment for enriching uranium — a move that pretty much puts them directly into conflict with the interim deal under which they promised not to bring new centrifuges into operation for six months in return for some limited sanctions relief. Evidently, this latest development hasn’t done much to quell the fears of the bipartisan group of senators pushing to legislatively impose the threat of new Iranian sanctions, despite the Obama administration’s attempts to quash that tactic, via Fox News:

One of the president’s top Democratic allies is leading the charge for Congress to pass sanctions legislation, despite the president’s pleas to stand down. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Fox News that the “Iranians are showing their true intentions” with their latest announcement.

“If you’re talking about producing more advanced centrifuges that are only used to enrich uranium at a quicker rate … the only purposes of that and the only reason you won’t give us access to [a military research facility] is because you’re really not thinking about nuclear power for domestic energy — you’re thinking about nuclear power for nuclear weapons,” he said. …

Menendez said he, like the president, wants to test the opportunity for diplomacy.

“The difference is that we want to be ready should that diplomacy not succeed,” the senator said. “It’s getting Congress showing a strong hand with Iranians at the same time that the administration is seeking negotiation with them. I think that that’s the best of all worlds.”

Indeed. As Krauthammer put it on Friday night, I’m not sure how they could be any more obvious about what their real intentions are here, and if their stated intentions were really of a more honorable nature, the mere pending possibility of further sanctions wouldn’t be nearly so big a deal, would it? Via RCP:

The only surprising thing here is that the Iranians are so confident about how supine Obama is on this. They stick a finger in his eye and announce it publicly. There is nothing in the agreement that stops the Iranians from enriching more uranium and produce the machines that enrich the uranium. That was the problem at the beginning. That’s what made the agreement a farce at the start. Unless you go after the uranium enrichment, unless you curtail or destroy the machines that enrich the uranium, you have done nothing to stop the progress of Iran. … And for Obama to take the side of the Mullahs against the Congress, if he was really serious about this, then why wouldn’t he use the fact that Congress is being tough and say Congress is the bad cop. You go to the Iranians and say, ‘Look, I’m trying to be reasonable but the Congress is out of control and they want to wreck your economy unless you shut down your program. I can’t hold them back. So are you going to negotiate seriously or not?’

Blowback

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QUESTION: So Menendez and Kirk have introduced a bill to institute sanctions if a broader deal isn’t reached. The State Department has urged against this kind of action. Is it the position of the State Department that if such a bill were to pass, the deal – interim deal would be off?

MS. HARF: Right. Let me make a few points on this – I think this is very important – state very clearly that we strongly oppose the action taken by these members of Congress. It directly contradicts the Administration’s work to resolve the concerns about the Iranian nuclear program peacefully. And on top of that, we believe it’s unnecessary. This legislation does not provide the President and the negotiating team with the flexibility to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran. And if Congress passes this bill, which is an if at this point, it would be proactively taking an action that would undermine American diplomacy and make a peaceful resolution to this issue less possible. I hear – we hear a lot from the Hill about how they want to resolve this peacefully. What we need to see – more than words, we need to see actions to back that up. We don’t believe this one does.

QUESTION: So you’ve gone to the Hill many times to tell them, don’t do this. Specifically, you’ve said even if it’s a conditioned sanction –

MS. HARF: Absolutely.

QUESTION: — it’s going to erode support for international sanctions. Given that you’ve told them so many times, please don’t do this, it’s going to hurt the chances of anything getting worked out, is this a bad sign for State’s relationship with the Hill?

MS. HARF: Well, I’d make a few points. We’ve made very clear to members of the Senate and others why we believe this would hurt our negotiating strategy. It appears in this case with the introduction of this legislation that they’ve chosen to ignore the assessment of our negotiators and also our intelligence community, which has said that additional sanctions would make this harder. I can actually get the exact language if you give me a second to pull it up. The intelligence community’s December 10th, 2013 assessment states that, quote, “New sanctions would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”

A couple points on the Hill, though. There is broad support in Congress for resolving this issue diplomatically. A number of prominent Democratic and Independent senators have publicly expressed their opposition to new sanctions legislation while negotiations are ongoing, among them, chairman of the Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein, chairman of Armed Services Carl Levin, chairman of the Banking Committee Senator Johnson. There’s a host of others that have publicly come out and said we need to give our negotiators the best chance to succeed. So I would take notion with the issue that Congress is speaking with one voice on this. Certainly, there are many members of Congress who don’t believe we should impose new sanctions now.

QUESTION: Did you get a heads-up that this was coming?

MS. HARF: It’s certainly been in discussions for weeks. We’ve been asked about it in here for a while. And we’ve been working continually with members of Congress on this issue, certainly, not just briefings but discussing with them when they come to us and propose or talk about possible new legislation. We’ve certainly been in discussions with them on this for a long time and are going to continue to going forward.

QUESTION: So just the last thing. Did you do any contingency planning with Iran? Did you reach out to Iran and say this might be happening?

MS. HARF: I think the Iranians read our press and knew that this might be happening. I’m happy to check on specifics in terms of that issue. But I don’t think this was probably any secret to anyone.

QUESTION: Just one more thing on that. It’s my understanding that these sanctions would only go into effect if they reneged on the deal that they’re kind of agreed to already. And I believe Secretary Kerry has already said that he’d be – he’d welcome new sanctions if –

MS. HARF: Absolutely.

QUESTION: — in fact, the deal –

MS. HARF: Absolutely.

QUESTION: — was not adhered to.

MS. HARF: Secretary Kerry has –

QUESTION: So what’s the difference?

MS. HARF: There’s a big difference. We have said we should not pass new sanctions legislation of any kind while we are negotiating. Secretary Kerry has been very clear that if this falls apart, we will be the first ones back up at Congress asking them to pass new sanctions. And every single person who follows this issue knows Congress could pass new sanctions in 24 hours if they wanted to. You don’t need to put in a deferred trigger because you could do it at the end of six months overnight. It would be easy. And the Iranians know that. So we don’t believe that we should take this unnecessary risk of threatening the negotiations for something that could be done overnight if we need to get there eventually.

QUESTION: Okay. Will the State Department recommend that the President veto the bill if it comes to his desk?

MS. HARF: I’m not going to get into any of those discussions. I know lots of people have questions about that. We have said very clearly that we strongly oppose this legislation. I’m just not going to go any further than that.

QUESTION: Marie, just to play devil’s advocate on this, why wouldn’t this legislation just add more fuel to the fire and motivate Iran to (a) follow through on the agreement that was made in Geneva and (b) make a final agreement?

MS. HARF: Well, for a couple reasons. We do know that sanctions we’ve put in place, both through Congress and also with the international community, have gotten us to this point. They were always designed to change the calculus on the Iranian side to get them back to the table and work towards a diplomatic solution. But there’s a couple reasons why now isn’t the right time.

First, it would divide the international community. We went around the world saying we were putting sanctions in place not for the purpose of sanctions per se but to get us to a diplomatic solution. If we look like to our partners we weren’t telling the truth, we weren’t negotiating in good faith, this agreement we have signed onto with the P5+1, it says very clearly no new sanctions while we negotiate, how can we ask other people to stand by agreements we’re not ourselves willing to stand by?

Also, it could drive the Iranians to take a harder line. They have their own domestic political situation there; and if we are seen as being an intransigent party or not sincerely open to negotiations, it could urge their folks to take a harder line. And the worst-case scenario would be ending negotiations. So why take the risk with something that doesn’t even go into effect just to prove a point, which, if there’s even a small chance it could blow up, the best chance we have to resolve this diplomatically, why would you take that chance if you’re a member of Congress who’s repeatedly said you want to solve this diplomatically? It just defies logic.

Josh.

QUESTION: Is it possible that you – that the agreement that you made you weren’t – didn’t have the authority to make because you didn’t have an agreement from Congress?

MS. HARF: Well, the Executive Branch certainly makes international agreements. Congress plays a role, as we know, depending on what we’re talking about.

QUESTION: The question is: Did you promise something that you couldn’t deliver?

MS. HARF: Not at all. I mean, look, what we’ve repeatedly said to Congress, we’ve gone up there and said why this agreement, this first-step agreement, is a good thing. It addresses things Congress has long talked about. It halts the progress of the program, it rolls it back in key areas, and it gives us room to negotiate the diplomatic solution that members of Congress say they want. So clearly, we believe that they should give the negotiators and the intelligence community – everyone involved in this – listen to their advice – they’re the ones on the ground talking to the Iranians, they’re the ones talking to our P5+1 partners – and give them the space to do their jobs. And if it doesn’t work, we’re happy to let Congress do its job and pass new sanctions, as we know they can very quickly. And again, that’s why we’ve worked with Congress on sanctions for the last however many years, because they’ve gotten us to where we are today. So we don’t discount that; we just think now is not the time.

If the Obama administration chose to circumvent US sanctions against Iran for the first six months of 2013, by allowing gold to flow from Turkey to Iran in exchange for natural gas, wouldn’t that be a big story? Seems that it is in Turkey.

If the Obama administration chose to circumvent US sanctions against Iran for the first six months of 2013, by allowing gold to flow from Turkey to Iran in exchange for natural gas, wouldn’t that be a big story? Seems that it is in Turkey.

Obama has his beliefs and actions and it is a perfectly definite set, there is no vagueness about it. He commands that the Jew bow to the Muslim at every turn they do him hurt or threaten him and his children with death. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of Obama is the spirit of the evil shadowed specter of the Beast of Austria insidiously billowing in and building and building to ever more horrific heights. The moment there is a question about a boundary line or a building or some Muslim somewhere complaining about any matter, see Obama rise, and see him spit at the Jew from the corner of his twisted mouth. The spirit of Obama being in its nature narcissistic and selfish — it is in the man’s line, it comes natural to him — he can fully live up to all of the teachings of Jeremiah Wright and even of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; for the spirit of Judaism is entirely impossible to him.

“If you’re talking about producing more advanced centrifuges that are only used to enrich uranium at a quicker rate … the only purposes of that and the only reason you won’t give us access to [a military research facility] is because you’re really not thinking about nuclear power for domestic energy — you’re thinking about nuclear power for nuclear weapons.”

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“If you’re talking about producing more advanced centrifuges that are only used to enrich uranium at a quicker rate … the only purposes of that and the only reason you won’t give us access to [a military research facility] is because you’re really not thinking about nuclear power for domestic energy — you’re thinking about nuclear power for nuclear weapons.”

King Putt will stop the Mullah’s in their quest for those 90+% purity U235 kilos by offering them a really deep and appoligetic BOW toward Mecca.
Much like the American media members aceing the new PRC exam on Highlights of Marxists Principles … King Putt will stand with his Muslim Faith when the political winds force him to TAKE A STAND.

Almost forgot the original thought … WHY is this pederast, pervert, child molesting whoremonger Menendez still in the United States Senate? Why doesn’t MSNBC’s ‘Tingles’ Matthew’s ask Menendez’ wife about these FAMILY issues?

Building the bomb isn’t all that technically difficult, basically, a really good internet search will give you most of the relevant information. In fact, if you could obtain the right materials any good college physics nerd could assemble a device big enough to take out a small city. It’s physics and the laws of physics are pretty much immutable. The trick is building a device small enough to put on top a rocket and deliver the payload with a reasonable amount of accuracy. That said, Iran is using centrifuges to enrich uranium to a level that would produce a nuclear fissionable warhead. The US did that in WWII at great cost in Tennessee and they were worried that they didn’t have enough material to make more than one or two bombs. Where they really went to town is in Hanford by producing plutonium. They could produce it faster and at less cost than by centrifuging uranium. Either way, Iran wants nukes. Obama is bound and determined to let them have them to “balance the power against Israel in the middle East.’ It makes no difference to him that he is setting the stage for WWIII just as long as the US no longer has any kind of influence to affect any kind of outcome there. Sorry for the long post.

Comrade O doesn’t really care if the Iranians get the bomb. Neither does SoS Lurch. Lefties and assorted socialists think Iran has the right to make The Bomb. In their “worldview” all nations have the right to do that.

But American citizens shouldn’t have a right to own a gun — cause guns are dangerous and the people who own them present a danger to other people. But I digress.

Their song and dance routine, in which they pretend otherwise, is purely for domestic consumption. For political reasons they need to make it appear they care and that they are seriously trying to stop them. At the same time, their massive egos require the effort look reasonable and sincere. So that when the mullahs finally get a bomb, that is if Israel can not stop them, they can act surprised and outraged at being betrayed.